As the volume of learning content explodes, how do we guide learners to make good choices? How do we ensure that fast content, like fast food, has the nutritional ingredients that the human mind, like the human body, needs? How do we avoid empty calories and wasted time spent searching for relevant material? How can we engineer the fastest path to expertise and avoid cognitive overload?

Recent research by global research and advisory firm Gartner indicates that when organizations move to self-serve and user-driven content strategies, learning and performance suffer. Learners are overwhelmed and confused. This reaffirms academic research published in the 2006 Educational Psychologist article, “Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Doesn’t Work,” which concludes that, when left to their own devices, learners do not know what learning activities are best for them.

How can we solve this problem? Wisdom-of-crowd techniques such as artificial intelligence-driven recommendations based on user ratings and consumption can help, but they still assume that users know what is good for them. It may be that high-quality video, charismatic presenters or easy assessments create an illusion of competence and inflate user ratings. It may be that learners avoid challenging content that requires more time and effort to build deeper knowledge.

Content curation that combines domain and design expertise is the answer, according to a 2013 Science article, “Instructional Complexity and the Science to Constrain It.” Domain experts select the content that best represents the skills needed on the job. Instructional designers sequence the content to support the cognitive processes involved in learning and identify missing ingredients, such as context-relevant examples and practice. Off-the-shelf content often needs to be supplemented with custom elements such as overviews, examples and practice activities. On-demand content may need to be interspersed with facilitated content previews, reviews and discussions. In the end, the learner is guided through a coherent experience that guarantees a consistent level of knowledge and confidence to perform certain tasks. The time and resources required to build the guidance is more than offset by the time and cognitive overload avoided by learners.

At EY, we balance guidance through learning for role and business-critical skills with freedom to explore based on personal interests and career aspirations. We assign content to individuals who fit particular profiles. We carefully curate small collection of the most relevant and best internal and external content for technical and nontechnical domains such as data analytics and personal leadership. We design blended programs which control and track progress through a sequence of self-directed and facilitated activities.

We leverage learning platform functionality to provide all this guidance in one place. Guided learning coexists with sophisticated search-and-recommendation functionality so people can also consume a la carte. It’s the best of both worlds.

As part of the learning and leadership development portfolio, the practice of 360-degree assessments or multisource feedback is a tried-and-true method to identify strengths and weaknesses. Simply put, I think of the 360-degree assessment process as a way to help individuals understand the actions they should keep taking to become more effective and also to identify those behaviors to stop doing or change that get in the way of their success.

Tracing its commercial beginnings to the ESSO Research and Engineering Co. in the 1950s, the multi-rater process entails gathering feedback from subordinates, peers, supervisors and customers in order to provide insight into employees’ strengths and weaknesses for the purposes of professional development. Further popularized as a leadership development and performance management best practice among firms, a 2016 Forbes article by Jack Zenger estimated that more than 85 percent of Fortune 500 companies use 360-degree feedback as part of their human capital development portfolio.

With the 360-degree process being focused on work performance and knowing that our individual effectiveness is influenced by and expands beyond our work life, I have been wondering whether using a “friends and family” 360-degree assessment would yield even more effective developmental benefits.

When I think back to memories of growing up and the pointers and advice I received from family members, teachers and even friends, there were similar and lasting themes. And over the years when I have received positive and constructive feedback at work and discussed it at home, there has also been consistent validation, even if to my chagrin. Further, when something goes awry on the home front and I get feedback, it is typically uniform across this combination of historical and job-related behaviors. Should we really be surprised by this consistency between our personal and professional selves?

We likely receive more accurate feedback in our personal lives. Consider how generous and unfiltered our siblings, spouses and children are when dispensing criticism. This recognition could lead to innovative ways of expanding the 360-degree feedback process to yield a more holistic assessment and action plan.

First, as part of the 360-degree assessment, include input from friends, family members and even people with whom you have regular interaction. For example, I am sure that my colleagues could provide valuable feedback on the degree to which my office and workspace are organized as part of my daily work routines. Making fun of my “day of the week” files that I use to track daily progress doesn’t hurt my feelings, but instead emboldens me to perfect this technique. Consistent with that tendency is the feedback my wife gives me about being compulsively organized, which I contend is a good practice for two busy people.

Second, implement an action plan that integrates practices across these two worlds. To do this, identify context-specific changes that are relevant to each setting. For example, for the person who is often late to work meetings and personal appointments, identify and implement the visible actions to demonstrate respect for work colleagues and family members. This could mean better schedule planning, leaving earlier to be on time or notifying colleagues by phone or text when running late.

Last, part of evaluating the 360-degree assessment process is to check back with the individuals who provided feedback. For this progress check, ask for feedback on the focus areas to evaluate the efficacy of your respective professional and personal outcomes. How have these areas improved in both domains? Where are they distinctly different? How does one inform the other? By using the 360-degree assessment process in both work and personal contexts, there can be a high degree of congruence between the two as progress is made.

While this may seem like a work practice that intrudes on your daily life, think about the last time you had a bad day at work and the impact it had on your personal life. Then, evaluate the relationship between the two and consider how employing changes in both contexts can lead to increased professional and personal effectiveness.

Generation Z — the generation following millennials — is already entering the workplace.

As companies welcome this new generation, one thing is already clear: Although members of Generation Z may be close in age to some of their millennial peers, their workplace motivations and goals are significantly different. While the millennial stereotype is one of a job-hopping worker eager to find a company with an aligned social impact orientation, initial surveys of Gen Z suggest they seek something else: financial and job stability.

As corporations think about how to recruit and retain this new generation, learning and development programs — particularly those that lead to advancement, greater job security or more opportunities in the labor market — will be key.

According to a recent survey, nearly three-quarters of talent developers say they plan on changing their learning and development plans to accommodate Generation Z workers. For a generation that has grown up online and surrounded by mobile technology, digital offerings will be an important part of any company’s learning plan. This is the generation, after all, that says they prefer texting work colleagues over any other form of communication. But digital alone won’t be sufficient. Learning needs to mean something, and learners want to be able to take their skills — and the proof of those skills — with them to their next job, and the one after that.

Digital badges — microcredentialing that serves as an online representation of the skills a learner has developed — are a perfect fit for new learning initiatives designed around this emerging generation. Here are three ways digital badges can help L&D leaders meet the expectations of Generation Z.

Creating Transparency Around Career Goals

Generation Z grew up watching their parents struggle through the Great Recession. They are also demonstrably worried about the long-term effects of student loan debt. In a 2017 survey of 500 high-school students, just 11 percent said they planned on taking on debt to go to college. The rest planned to work their way through school or attend a less expensive institution to avoid debt.

It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that surveys show that Gen Z is much more focused on financial security and getting ahead in the workforce than millennials are. A recent survey of 2,000 members of Generation Z found that nearly half say they are motivated to learn so they can be promoted. About 60 percent say they want to learn so they can receive a raise. More than one-third of Generation Z say they plan on starting to save for their retirement while in their 20s.

Members of Generation Z want to know where they are headed in their careers and how to get there. To recruit and retain this generation of self-starters eager for advancement, companies will need to become more transparent about how learning ladders up to new work opportunities. Connecting digital badges that demonstrate competencies to promotion expectations allows young workers to understand what is expected of them and how they can move toward those goals. It also illuminates an organization’s workforce planning objectives, making it easier for education and training providers trying to create pathways for Gen Z members to jobs the labor market demands.

Making Learning More Social

For a generation of true digital natives who have grown up learning to control their digital footprint and develop an online persona, digital badges provide an opportunity to highlight what they know in a familiar way. Growing up on social media platforms, members of Generation Z value fast feedback and the ability to share the things most important to them. Digital badges can be displayed and shared across a variety of online mediums, from social media (including professional networking sites like LinkedIn) to digital resumes or email signature lines.

Digital badges can also help make employee learning — and sharing what they have accomplished — more social. According to LinkedIn, more than half of all workers now value the ability to collaborate with instructors and other learners through online forums, groups or other digital means. Digital badges provide young employees with the language they need to have those discussions. And as individuals who came of age knowing how trusted influencers break through the noisy social media landscape, Gen Z employees armed with official, verified evidence of their achievements are proud to become brand ambassadors for the organizations with whom they affiliate.

Making Proof Portable

Generation Z wants ownership of how and when they learn, as well as ownership of those learning outcomes. This requires, first, that learning is both recognized and validated, and second, that it’s memorialized in a format that is sharable beyond the walls of their employer.

Digital badges allow learners to more easily show what they know and allow for greater flexibility in how they communicate what they have learned. Because the credentials live online, they can go with the learner wherever they go — an important consideration for a generation that has grown up alongside smart phones and storing everything in the cloud. Allowing learners to “own” their achievements in a way that transcends a current employer makes learning more valuable, turning skills into a currency recognized more broadly in the workforce.

While headlines may still be fretting about the wants, needs and habits of millennials, companies would be wise to recognize that there is a new and unique cohort of workers that should demand their focus. Generation Z has arrived, and companies must work to attract and accommodate this next generation of workers.

As learning professionals, we know, intuitively, that learning is a good practice in any context. We know that learning is the best path to a new experience, job or even, a new career. However, do we know what moments in our learning journey are essential to achieving these goals? Wouldn’t it beneficial to know what moments in your learning journey are the most important to optimize your learning and subsequent performance?

In this session, Brett Wilson, Director of Thought Leadership and Strategy at Cornerstone, is joined by both Bob Mosher and Conrad Gottfredson, learning thought leaders and principals at Apply Synergies. Both Bob and Con have been pondering this exact same question above for the last 40 years! Moderated by Brett, Bob and Con examine what have come to be known as the 5 Moments of Learning Need.

A few years ago, I was the keynote speaker at a women’s diversity conference. That morning, I was chatting with Annie McKee, director of the University of Pennsylvania CLO program. We are both from the same generation, having entered the workforce with the hope of a more promising future for women in corporations. As we got ready to go into the conference, Annie asked me, “Why aren’t we seeing more success in advancing women? Did we drop the ball?”

I’ve often thought about Annie’s question and my best answer is that there are a lot of us who have dropped the ball and even more who didn’t realize the ball was in play. That being said, we have made progress, and my goal is to help corporations continue to do so.

The Meritocracy Fallacy

Unfortunately, many women and corporate leaders continue to cling to what I call the “meritocracy fallacy.” It’s the belief that female talent will be noticed and promoted to leadership roles and, as a result, gender parity will be achieved. If that were the case, we would have been at parity years ago, since large numbers of talented women have been part of the workforce for almost half a century and, today, the workforce is more than 50 percent women.

Yet those numbers get smaller and smaller as we move up the corporate ladder, with only 26.5 percent of executive or senior-level positions in S&P 500 companies held by women and just 5 percent of CEO spots. In fact, women buying into the meritocracy fallacy has actually deterred their advancement. It has often led them to keep their nose to the grindstone and to overlook a crucial career-advancing reality: It’s not what you know. It’s who knows you know.

The good news is that senior leaders are becoming increasingly aware that change will happen only when they pick up the ball Annie alluded to. More and more, they are prioritizing retention and advancement of female talent as a major corporate objective.

After 25 years of working with leading corporations, I’ve identified five key strategies that support the development and advancement of female talent into leadership roles.

1. What Gets Measured Gets Attention.

Numbers are the language of business, telling the corporate story and understood by managers throughout the organization. Yet until recently, data regarding attracting, developing and retaining female talent was almost nonexistent. In order for gender parity to move front and center and for more women to reach leadership roles, initiatives must be objectively measured.

Organizations need to compile facts and figures at all levels. How many women are hired? In what departments? At what locations? In what roles? How many are promoted? How does that compare with their male counterparts? Reviewing data of this kind over a three- to five-year period helps companies understand where and how they are succeeding with gender parity and where they need to increase their efforts.

Additionally, managerial performance needs to be tied to measurable results in attracting, retaining and advancing female talent. Managers must understand, as communicated from the highest levels, that they are expected to meet specific, tangible goals that proactively move the needle of gender parity.

2. Share Facts, Figures and Findings to Get Buy-In.

Data is objective. Opinions are not. Sharing facts, figures and findings, including the disparities between men and women in the organization, as well as attitudinal misconceptions, can move gender parity initiatives forward at every level. Additionally, numerical data can help the entire organization progress to a culture of conscious inclusion, based on hard facts about what needs to change.

For example, a 2018 study by my organization, Women Unlimited study of more than 5,000 talented women and their male managers on the breadth and depth of the developmental support women receive showed wide disparities. Managers overwhelmingly gave themselves significantly higher marks than the high-potential women. Forty-seven percent of managers felt they helped women “explore other roles for growth and development” as opposed to 28 percent of the women surveyed. Fifty-four percent of managers were confident they “provided stretch assignments.” Far fewer of the women thought so, at 26 per-cent. Seventy-two percent of surveyed managers believed they helped women explore ways to “apply key learnings” from development programs. Only 33 percent of the women agreed.

These disconnects are indicative of how women and their male managers and colleagues view the corporate landscape differently. Data is crucial in helping bridge that divide.

3. Feedback Is Not a Nicety. It’s a Necessity.

Lack of honest, career-developing feedback is a long-standing barrier to women achieving leadership roles. Too often, the feedback doesn’t go beyond, “You’re doing great, just keep doing what you’re doing.” In our Women Unlimited survey, only 52 percent of women felt they received needed feedback from their managers. Without feedback that specifically spells out strengths, as well as areas of growth needed for advancement, women stay stalled in the same positions, often for their entire careers.

Receiving needed feedback is a two-way street. It is as much up to the women as it is to their managers. Women need to look at their career aspirations and understand how to recalibrate their skills and capabilities for future positions. Then they need to ask their managers and others in the organization for the best ways to hone those skills so they are in sync with corporate needs and goals. Women need to be willing to hear and accept criticism as well as praise. And they need to seek out feedback not just when their performance is being reviewed, but regularly.

4. P&L Responsibility: Start Early.

Without profit and loss experience, it is virtually impossible for women to advance to positions of corporate leadership. Statistically, women are much less likely than their male colleagues to hold positions with P&L responsibility at early and midcareer levels. They are disproportionately in staff roles and they do not tend to gravitate to line positions at anywhere near the same rate as men. As a result, women are at a major disadvantage in their path to advancement.

Aside from the obvious skill sets, a number of additional career-boosting benefits accrue from P&L positions taken on early. These positions are more likely to result in visibility among corporate power players, upping the possibility for being noticed by potential sponsors and advocates. P&L skills are applicable across virtually any industry and any specific job. Mastery of financial issues builds strategic decision-making prowess — exactly what is needed at top leadership levels.

To ensure that more women have this needed P&L experience, corporations must actively and intentionally pinpoint high-potential women early in their careers and help them navigate to positions that build their financial expertise.

5. Relationships Matter.

Women are often less likely than their male colleagues to understand the importance of mentoring relationships, especially early on in their careers. Unlike their male counterparts, they don’t unleash the power of mentors as sounding boards for success. They don’t look to mentors to provide insights on their career goals and on navigating the corporate landscape based on those goals.

In my independent research, compiled in a white paper, “Women’s Mentoring Wisdom,” I found that midlevel female talent who experienced the most successful mentoring relationships displayed three similar characteristics. First, they prepared for the meetings with their mentors by defining their career goals and what they wanted from the mentoring relationship. Second, they took to heart the insights their mentors provided even when challenging behavioral changes were required, and they “showed up” in new ways at work that advanced their growth and development. And third, they leveraged their learning from the mentor relationship to build organizational relationships. As a result of being intentional in these ways, they were able to develop career-advancing strategies that would have been impossible to develop on their own.

Additionally, in Women Unlimited’s research of 2,500 high-potential women and their mentors, we found that women benefit from having both male and female mentors. Corporate leaders (especially male leaders), when they mentor women, also gain insights and empathy for the challenges women face. They then apply these insights to their own organizations, improving both their leadership roles and their advocacy for women.

In other words, the benefits of effective mentoring relationships have proven to be far more pervasive than career advice and support for mentees. Both empirical and anecdotal research have repeatedly shown that mentors, corporate leaders, their teams and the corporation as a whole are all also beneficiaries.

All-In: Developing More Female Leaders

As I look at the small number of high-level female leaders, I am not inclined to play the blame game or analyze who dropped the ball. I am much more predisposed to think of success as an all-in reboot. No one is exempt, no matter their department, their position or their location. Obviously, some have more responsibility than others to move initiatives forward. Corporate leadership needs to be the driving force behind requiring change, accountability and metrics, because if the boss wants it to happen, it will happen.

Managers must be willing to step up, offer women high-visibility assignments and provide them with the same type of straightforward, career-advancing feedback they provide the men on their teams. CLOs and their teams need to assess the right mix of internal and external development programs that help women at all levels prepare for advancement, keeping in mind that there is no one-size-fits-all and that development must start early.

Organizations must foster an environment where talented women move into P&L roles as seamlessly as their male colleagues. They need to help facilitate the mentoring process and encourage both men and women to take on mentoring roles.

Finally, women themselves must take responsibility for their career growth and development without waiting for someone to invite them to step up. They need to actively seek out feedback from their managers and to develop relationships that help them understand how their advancement will contribute to corporate growth and profitability.

Most important, success will not happen piecemeal. Latching on to one or two strategies and claiming victory will continue to stall the development of the large number of female leaders corporations will need in the years ahead. “All in” has got to be the name of the game.

On Feb. 26, Chicago voters narrowed the giant field of 2019 mayoral candidates from 14 to two in an historic election that sent two African-American female candidates to an April runoff election. The winner, Lori Lightfoot, will be the city’s first African-American female mayor.

It’s an exciting time, as more women and people of color are moving into leadership positions in both government and business. But it’s safe to say there’s still plenty of room for improvement. According to 2019 data from Catalyst, women — particularly minority women — are still scarce in corporate leadership roles: In S&P 500 companies, women represent 26.5 percent of executive and senior-level officials and managers and 5 percent of CEOs. Women of color represent only 4.7 percent of executive and senior-level roles.

Additionally, according to the “Missing Pieces Report: The 2018 Board Diversity Census of Women and Minorities on Fortune 500 Boards,” while there have been a few gains for some demographic groups in terms of women and minority representation on corporate boards, advancement is slow. In 2018, 66 percent of Fortune 500 board seats were held by white men, 17.9 percent were held by white women, 11.5 percent were held by minority men, and 4.6 percent were held by minority women. The study is a culmination of a multiyear effort by the Alliance for Board Diversity in collaboration with Deloitte.

The slow advancement of women, minorities and particularly minority women can be attributed to an abundance of factors and barriers. According to data from the Chief Learning Officer Business Intelligence Board, only 27 percent of surveyed learning organizations offer specific leadership development for women,and 15 percent have leadership development offerings specific to racial, ethnic or cultural groups (Figure 1).

Additionally, only 22 percent of those surveyed said diversity and inclusion is seamlessly integrated with the design and planning of leadership development at their organization (Figure 2).

Twenty-four percent said their organization does not integrate D&I with leadership development at all, and the majority (54 percent) said they are still in the process of integrating the function.

The Chief Learning Officer Business Intelligence Board is a group of 1,500 professionals in the learning and development industry who have agreed to be surveyed by the Human Capital Media Research and Advisory Group, the research and advisory arm of Chief Learning Officer magazine.

Research shows that leadership development is critical to helping women and minorities move into leadership roles. The “KPMG Women’s Leadership Study,” conducted in 2015, identified confidence building and leadership training, as well as the ability to network with women leaders, as key to expanding women’s leadership. According to the study, when asked what skills were needed to help move more women into leadership roles in the future, professional working women cited leadership training, confidence building, decision-making, networking and critical thinking most often (Figure 3).

It’s widely understood that a diverse workforce provides many immediate and long-term benefits to businesses. And companies with more women in leadership have been shown to outperform competition significantly. Offering development programs specific to women and minorities could help grow representation of these groups on our leadership teams, leading to a stronger company culture, extended market reach and even increased recruiting opportunities.

Let’s face it — many plans to transform corporate learning culture and improve employee performance are plagued with short-term, tactical disruptions. The ever-evolving needs of customers, market changes and leadership demands pose constant challenges for chief learning officers looking to keep large-scale workforces agile, relevant and productive. CLOs are tasked with creating and fostering a positive and continuous learning culture that links to business goals, engages employees and can be measured. In addition, corporate learning programs must have buy-in from C-suite peers, which isn’t always easy with so many competing priorities.

We are seeing a fundamental shift in the L&D landscape with an employee-centric blended learning approach taking center stage. Savvy CLOs are looking to scalable technology solutions to deliver engaging learning content in the workflow that compliments and reinforces other platforms. This approach creates a win-win scenario, as it engages employees and makes them happier and more creative, all while helping organizations lower costs, remain competitive and create value for customers.

Following are three employee-centric best practices CLOs should keep in mind when preparing their workforce to successfully meet ever-evolving market challenges.

1. Business goals and learning goals must go hand in hand.

Before determining business goals, ask yourself: What do employees need to learn to have the most impact? What are their unique talents and strengths? Every L&D initiative, regardless of size, needs a clearly defined, measurable goal that links to a business objective. L&D is fast becoming a business imperative, but not all C-suite peers necessarily see value when hard measurement of ROI has been lacking. CLOs can only stress that continuous workplace learning is a must-have, not a nice-to-have, when they can prove an impact on business outcomes. L&D programs are too often considered a low priority, which can deprioritize executive support and funding compared to other initiatives. Tying L&D programs to tangible results — such as proficiency, which is becoming the new currency of ROI — is essential. Ensuring L&D and business goals go hand in hand is a way CLOs can guarantee L&D programs are being properly supported, implemented and valued.

2. Engage employees by investing in their personalized learning journey.

Successful companies put their employees first. After all, employees are an organization’s biggest asset, so it’s crucial to invest and engage in their unique learning needs to be successful. The challenge is how to identify knowledge and skills gaps to know where to start when crafting a personalized learning journey that is relevant and timely. This requires assessing baseline knowledge and behaviors through technology such as mobile microlearning, which can pinpoint areas for managers to provide personalized coaching support. When rolled up at team, function or group levels, such technology can inform learning program development to address the gaps and not waste time training areas that have already been mastered. Learning program efficiency is a must when budget, time and resources are constrained.

3. Simulate critical thinking.

To make employees better — not just smarter — utilize scenario-based simulations in your L&D programs. Engaging employees in critical thinking can help develop and shape the right behaviors so they can do their best. Critical thinking simulations prepare employees to be responsive and agile in any situation. When scenario-based critical thinking challenges are combined with spaced education techniques, such as spacing and testing effects, long-lasting behavioral changes can be impacted more durably. In the learning process, scientifically proven spacing techniques combat the forgetting curve by improving knowledge retention. They do this by presenting and reinforcing information over time. Meanwhile, the testing effect is an active learning and long-term behavior change process that tests, challenges and questions individuals while giving them immediate feedback.

Most plans to transform corporate learning culture and improve employee performance come up short. Stay a step ahead of your customers’ needs by adequately preparing your employees with the knowledge, skills and behaviors to deliver value in any situation. For CLOs to guarantee L&D program success, it’s important to link initiatives to clear and measurable goals that tie back to business objectives, while also being conscious of how employees engage in learning. Creating critical-thinking simulations helps your employees succeed in real-world situations. This is critical as customer needs and markets are constantly changing and CLOs need to prepare and engage the workforce of the future to be agile, adaptive and customer-centric.